It's all down to the excess tension you have when holding those positions. The aim is to get you to release that tension so you only use the minimum tension necessary to hold the position. In a relatively short space of time you will find you can hold for half an hour with little or no pain.

Try to relax all tensions downward through your feet into the floor. Gradually you will find your legs strengthen, your breathing relax and will feel greatly energised after each session.

Qi is universal energy. It is all around us. When we are are born, we already have a store of "original qi" in our dan tien. As we get older our original qi depletes, and when it runs out, we die. By practising Tai chi and, in particular, Qigong, we can restore original qi to our dan tien. We do not "create" qi when we train, we are merely "gathering" universal qi and locking it in our dan tien. The more universal qi we gather, the healthier we become.

... and it's thinking and explanations like this that really is moving Tai Chi into the 21st century, ain't it???

In Chi Kung/Qi Gong you should view the process of engaging the muscles and softening, not relaxing. Relaxing implies slackness and laziness. What are looking at doing is lengthening the muscles so that we recruit them more efficiently and powerfully. Most of us are hyper tight most of the time and when we train we tighten the muscles up even more. One thing that Chi Kung teaches us is how to engage and use the muscles more efficiently. If you think of an elastic band, when you stretch it you increase the tension and then it pings back into its normal state. In Chi Kung we lengthen (stretch) the muscles and then 'soften' the them to maintain the 'length' - over time the level of resting tension in the muscles is reprogrammed. As the muscles start to release we start to find deeper and deeper parts of them to access - which they don't like so they moan at us. Chi Kung also *should* teach us the skills of how to move every part of the body in a connected and driven manner. These body skills are taught and isolated in Chi Kung and then put together in form and validated and tested in push hands.

All the talk of 'origin qi' and restoring depleted qi is utterly pointless to most western audiences and pretty much misunderstood coming from most oriental sources. You want explain why Chi Kung improves vitality to western people? Easy. Say it provides us with a means to diagnose and rectify areas where our muscles are holding on too tightly. That 'holding' on burns up our bodily resources, pulls our body out of alignment which makes moving around a chore - easing the tension makes things work easier and uses less energy. Job done... I really am sick of bloody hippies in Tai Chi - they really deplete my qi!

"Qi is universal energy. It is all around us. When we are are born, we already have a store of "original qi" in our dan tien. As we get older our original qi depletes, and when it runs out, we die. By practising Tai chi and, in particular, Qigong, we can restore original qi to our dan tien. We do not "create" qi when we train, we are merely "gathering" universal qi and locking it in our dan tien. The more universal qi we gather, the healthier we become."